NATICK, Mass., Oct. 9, 2019 -- In the LED lighting industry, large businesses in the commercial and industrial sectors were hesitant to integrate the technology at scale in their operations. Now that LED technology has had over a decade's worth of maturation and refinement, two of the auto industry's leading manufacturers are continuing their large-scale installation projects.
In 2014, Ford invested in a $25M LED retrofit project aimed at manufacturing facilities in the US and worldwide, resulting in an annual energy savings of 56 million kilowatt-hours – enough electricity to power 6,000 average-sized homes every year. Similarly, GM is enjoying a 60% reduction in costs over 32 project sites. Between them both, the savings is nearly $10 million annually.
ThinkLite LLC, an established LED lighting manufacturer headquartered in Natick, MA, has serviced the automotive industry for nearly a decade. ThinkLite has seen an uptick in the number of RFPs for commercial and retail installations in the last year, a number they think is only going to rise.
"Since 2018, we have experienced an increase in market demand by over 25%. Corporations, property managers, and manufacturing facilities, now understand the real-world cost savings, light quality improvement, and simplified maintenance afforded by our LED solutions," says Danny Wadhwani, COO-CFO of ThinkLite. "State and Federal energy incentives, paired with efficient lighting, allows for a positive ROI in as little as 15 months."
ThinkLite is well-known in the automotive industry, having recently come off a NASCAR win at The Magic Mile in Loudon, NH in September. The #36 ThinkLite car was driven to Victory Lane by Bobby Santos III, leaving Mr. Wadhwani very pleased:
"We love the opportunity to bring attention to the enormous financial and environmental impacts of LED lighting. Our NASCAR sponsorship this year and the impressive efforts by the #36 team have helped our mission to bring this technology deeper into the automotive industry. Now that the big auto makers are on board, the next step is to integrate the secondary and downstream suppliers as well."
Based on a Center for Automotive Research report, there are 975 auto industry related manufacturing plants and over 63,000 auto parts stores nationwide so the financial and ecological impacts would be substantial.
Wadhwani expects that businesses who service the automotive industry will be next to adopt the technology, with dealerships, auto parts stores, repair and tire shop franchises topping the list. Corporations with locations in the dozens, or even hundreds, stand to benefit tremendously from the savings.
ThinkLite has a global footprint in 14 countries and is the only LED manufacturer that delivers the full 'Manufacture to Installation' value chain. Some consider them the Tesla of lighting. They manufacture proprietary LED technologies, are a national utility incentive expert, provide turn-key installations, and act as the onsite project manager. This end to end capability is a customer journey that very few can provide.
